The roadway leading up to the Veterans Memorial Museum in Chehalis as seen on Friday afternoon.
Faced with limited parking options, the Veterans Memorial Museum is seeking to add an additional 70 parking spots on a piece of land adjacent to the museum.
Most every public organization in Lewis County that applied for project funding via the 2019-2021 Washington State Capital Budget received most or all of what they asked for. City governments and nonprofit organizations alike celebrated when Gov. Jay Inslee’s signature hit the final version of the budget bill on Tuesday.
Perhaps the only Lewis County organization left feeling shorted by the biennial budget process was the Veterans Memorial Museum in Chehalis. They received $123,000 from the capital budget, far less than the approximately $900,000 that Museum Director Chip Duncan says he asked for.
According to Duncan, that money would have been used to turn property adjacent to the museum at 100 SW Veterans Way into a parking lot and memorial park. As many as 70 additional parking spaces would have been added to the complex, which often runs out of space for cars when it holds larger events. Museum staff also hoped to remodel the event space itself on the second floor of the building to make it more amenable to a wide variety of uses for community organizations.
“I don’t know exactly how we’re going to spend what we got, because it doesn’t fit any one budget requirement we had,” Duncan said. “We’re going to have to figure out what parts of the renovations we can start on, and what we can do on the parking lot project with those resources. We’ve had representatives going to bat for us this time around and in prior budgets. There’s only so much money to go around, and they have to dole it out. It is what it is, and we’ll look at other grant sources, since we didn’t get it from the state.”
Duncan’s primary partner at the legislative level has been state Rep. Jim Walsh, R-Aberdeen. Walsh represents the 19th Legislative District, but said he’s had no issues helping to champion projects for organizations, such as the Veterans Memorial Museum, located just over the border between the 19th and 20th districts, the latter of which includes most of Lewis County.
Walsh said Thursday that he plans to help the museum apply for additional sources of funding once they’re able to iron out some details regarding the land parcel it wants to use for the parking lot and some other bits of information related to its long-term vision. Walsh hopes Duncan will be able to submit an application for funding by the time the supplemental capital budget process begins in January.
“If we can get some better clarification as far as terms and timeframes for some of the things they want to do, I think we can get them those additional funds,” Walsh said. “I know they’ve talked about getting a restaurant or cafe set up there, and that wouldn’t be capital budget money, but they would be in better shape for those if we can help them with the infrastructure. I think their long-term plan is to make the museum more an event venue, and I think that’s a good idea.”
Duncan envisions a much more visually striking front entrance once the museum is able to complete its planned upgrades. Deck guns would be the centerpiece of new signage, with a strip of war monuments leading patrons to the front steps. He added that there have been many local organizations in contact with the museum over the years, asking when and where they can place memorials on the property.
“We wanted to get the front of the house all cleaned up, first.” Duncan said. “We were told to apply for next year and then to see what happens. It’s kind of one of those things where, when we’re looking at the amount of funding we have now, it’s like, what can we do without being fully funded on those aspects?”
